Japanese Jiggly Cheesecake
This recipe was first published in Waitrose Weekend.
We don’t often associate Japanese cooking with desserts but let me tell you we Japanese have a real sweet tooth, myself included. This week I wanted to share a special Japanese “jiggly” cheesecake recipe I have recently developed for you. This dessert is a real crowd pleaser as it comes to the table wobbling on the plate topped with juicy strawberries. The recipe is a little more involved and the technique is like to classic soufflé making so I’ll do a deep-dive into the recipe to teach you how to make it.
Chizu Keki
In Japan we have three alphabets (confusing, I know!) and one of these is Katakana. This is the language reserved for imported western words like piku-niku (pic-nic) or supamaketto (supermarket). We’ve even extended this to imported food for example try saying chizu keki out loud you’ll notice that it sounds a lot like the English word “cheesecake”. My 5 year old daughter is currently learning Japanese and she likes to try and cheat by saying English words in a Japanese accent. It’s so funny!
Japanese Patisserie
I’m a fan of the old-school Japanese desserts such as taiyaki cakes filled with sweetened bean paste and dango rice dumplings with a sweet soy glaze. But I grew up eating desserts rich in butter so It’s the French – Japanese fusion patisserie that really gets me excited. Macha macarons, black sesame eclairs and who can forget the mille crepe cakes that featured on Great British Bake Off last year? This successful hybrid cuisine could be down to Japanese pastry chefs opting to train in France and learning their trade in the world’s best patisserie shops. Many chefs have gone on to open their own successful Parisian bakeries such as Sadhuru Aoki, who is now considered one of the must-try patisseries in French capital. I would LOVE to plan a trip to Paris and hop from shop to shop trying all the Japanese pastries I can find!
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Special Ingredient – Yuzu
This dimpled and rather bumpy skinned fruit has been having a bit of a moment in recent years. With fine dining in both London and France championing this little citrus and its fragrant tangy flavour. We’ve been using it in Japanese cuisine for hundreds of years and now it seems the rest of the world is loving it too! The yuzu fruit has notes of lime, lemon and grapefruit and works well in many sweet and savoury dishes. You can use it in exactly the same way as a lemon but it’s more zingy, bouncy and bit more fun – just like this cheesecake!
Oven temp is key
On to the recipe! Firstly, It’s important to start the cheesecake off high at 190° C and then drop the temperature to 110° C, I realised in my tests that if I cooked the cake at the same temperature then the cake wouldn’t hold its shape or was likely to suddenly collapse. All ovens are different and if you suspect yours is running a bit hot then invest in an oven thermometer to make your life easier.
Folding for a light and fluffy cake
Like making a soufflé, this cheesecake uses the technique of folding whipped egg into a batter. This step is crucial to the success of your cheesecake. I suggest folding the first part of your meringue into the batter to loosen the mixture and then the second two thirds in two batches. However, there is more to folding than meets the eye! Fold your mixture with too much force and you will beat out the air in the whites and end up with a pancake instead of a cheesecake. If you don’t fold the mixture enough you will end up with lumps of egg whites which will affect the texture of your cake. Using a large metal spoon, working quickly and efficiently, gently draw the spoon through the mixture in a figure of eight until you have a smooth mixture. Any smaller bubbles of egg white can be teased out with the end of the spoon.
Rest that batter guys
Another important step to understand is resting the batter in the fridge. This may seem unnecessary but please don’t skip this step as you end up with a melted cheesecake. It’s all about building the airy yet strong structure of the inside of the cake and resting the batter ensures that - and that’s what makes this cake utterly irresistible!
Japanese Jiggly Cheesecake
Ingredients
- 250g soft cheese/ cream cheese
- 35g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 4 tbsp double cream
- 4 medium eggs
- 1 tsp Yuzu Juice
- 25g cornflour, sieved
- 15g plain flour, sieved
- 75g caster sugar
- Strawberries, blueberries and a few mint leaves, to decorate
Method
- Preheat the oven to 190°C, gas mark 5. Line the bottom and sides of an 18 cm springform cake tin with baking parchment. Cover the outside with foil to make it watertight.
- Fill a large heatproof bowl or pot with just-boiled water. Put the soft cheese, butter and cream in a smaller heatproof bowl and sit it in the hot water. Mix with a spatula until the butter and cheese melt, then add the egg yolks and yuzu juice. Add the sifted flours and mix gently until combined. Strain the mixture through a sieve to produce a smooth batter, then put in the fridge for half an hour to rest.
- Put the egg whites and sugar in another large bowl and whisk to soft peaks, taking care not to over beat. Add 1/3 of the meringue to the cheese mixture and mix well, then gently fold in another 1/3 and then the final 1/3, to make a light and airy cake batter. Pour into the cake tin.
- Sit the cake tin in a medium roasting tin and fill the larger tin up to half way with just-boiled water. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, then drop the temperature to 110°C, gas mark 1⁄4, and bake for 1 hour until golden brown on top and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and take the cake tin out of the water bath immediately. Carefully remove the
- cake tin and leave the cheesecake until completely cool.
- Decorate with berries and a few mint leaves. Serve at room temperature.
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